Thankfully, Nick was wrong.
At a quick holler from Warrick, Brass and Deputy Juarez came pounding into the living room, guns at the ready, only to holster them slowly, in awe of the carnage surrounding them.
Warrick's fingers moved from Nick's neck to that of the boy recumbent in his arms. A barely felt pulse; thready and weak but still there. He raised eyes to look over at Brass who was checking out the girl. A somber headshake confirmed her obvious demise.
The deputy moved to Ramón's side. "This one's still alive. This your suspect?"
Brass nodded. "Check him for weapons. I'm not taking any chances."
The deputy patted Ramón down, finding no weapon, but after a quick scan he discovered the discarded gun Nick had kicked away from the fallen drug dealer. He pulled a pen out of his uniform pocket and poked it into the barrel, lifting it up and holding it out for Brass and Warrick to see. Warrick rose from his crouch next to Nick and the boy and handed the deputy a set of latex gloves to better secure the gun. "Thanks for not messing up the prints," he said with a half smile.
"We're not all dumbass cops," the deputy grunted. "I watch TV," he said, gruffly returning the smile.
"We need a bus for these guys, and a coroner for the girl. What ya got round these parts?"
"The nearest decent hospital is back in Laughlin. About a half hour from here back at the Arizona border."
"I don't think these guys have time to wait for a bus … Brass!"
The detective left the dead girl's body and joined them by Ramón.
"I think we oughta pile these guys into our rides. I can take the deputy's truck and leave him here to secure the scene. I think Nick and the kid'll fit in the truck. You can take Orozco in the Taurus. We could probably make better time with the gumballs going than waiting for an ambulance. What do you think?"
"Sounds like a plan. Juarez? Do me a favor? Cuff our suspect and get him ready for transport?" At a brief nod from the deputy Brass sighed and scratched his head. "Jesus, what a mess," he muttered.
Warrick took the kid on his own. The boy barely weighed a buck and change and his limp form fell limply over Warrick's shoulder. He tried to keep the makeshift pressure bandage of Nick's shirt tight to the boy's gut as he lifted him and took him out front to lay him gently in the back of the truck.
By the time he returned Brass had already gotten Nick's good arm slung around his shoulder and had managed to get the CSI on his feet. Warrick joined his partner at the other side. His extra height required him to stoop a bit but he gently lifted the wounded arm to place it over his own shoulder. He gave his friend a quick once over, relieved to see no fresh wounds on Nick's body, but the fever he'd been fighting had spiked. Most alarming was the absence of the perspiration Warrick had been used to seeing. Nick's skin was now flushed red and dry as a bone. Heat radiated from him, perceptible from inches away.
At a glance from Brass they began walking Nick to the front door. His feet moved robotically but he managed to lurch forward, heavily supporting himself on his two friends' frames. He continued to mumble nonsensical things, his words holding no apparent meaning. "The car…the box… they're all dead…"
Warrick shook his head and tried to hasten their pace but Nick weighed more than his lean frame would have lead one to believe, and it was slow going. "C'mon, Bro," he gently urged, but there was no evidence that Nick even recognized their presence.
They got him out to the truck and put him in the front passenger seat; it was like trying to pile a sack of wet cement into the vehicle. Warrick buckled him and shut the door. Nick fell to the side to rest against the window, the movement of his lips still visible as he continued to mutter to himself.
The deputy had Ramón by one arm, their suspect able to walk with none-too-gentle assistance from the much taller officer, bracelets fastened at the front out of deference to his arm wound. He piled him into the back of the Taurus with a hand on the suspect's head. The deputy then took a second set of handcuffs from his belt and attached one bracelet to the door. Brass noticed the effort and shot the deputy a grim smile.
"Taking no chances, right?" the deputy grunted out.
Warrick took the truck and the lead, out along the long drive back out to what passed for a main road out here. It was pretty much a straightaway from there to Laughlin and Warrick flipped on the sirens and lights, pedal to the metal on the way to the hospital. He took frequent glances at his partner, but Nick was still incoherent. His mumbling had stopped and he appeared to be in a restless sleep. The heat radiating from where his face rested on the cool window left a corona of condensation around his profile.
Warrick had turned the A/C on high, not sure if it would help, but figuring it couldn't hurt. By the time they got to the County Hospital the air in the truck was frigid, and he rubbed constantly at his arms, willing the feeling back into them.
At his arrival outside the ER a group of doctors and nurses arrived pulling three stretchers. Warrick allowed a grim smile. Brass musta called ahead. Always thinking, Jim …
The medical personnel helped unload the two from Warrick's truck, Brass pulling up along side and allowing the staff to put Ramón on a stretcher as well after uncuffing him from the door.
Warrick and Jim followed the gurneys into the ER and watched as they disappeared behind the swinging doors of the main trauma treatment area.
… … … … … … … … … … … …
There were few things Gil Grissom hated more than having to talk to his boss. Ecklie was the polar opposite of everything the entomologist was as a CSI and a man. Unfortunately, the call he'd just received from Jim Brass left little other choice.
He sighed, plastering a fake smile on his face, hoping that the smile would translate to his voice on the phone.
"Conrad? It's Gil. Who do you have available from Days?"
"I've got Galloway and Choi free. Why? You need help with one of your cases from Grave?" Even through the phone Grissom could picture the slightly gloating smile on the administrator's face. Gil Grissom asking for help on one of His people's cases? Practically unheard of.
"No," Grissom managed to bite out, reforming the plastic smile. "I have a new one for them. Galloway …is that Tim? He's the runner right?" Grissom remembered the tall skinny guy from the last charity race he'd attended. Liked the wiry guy. He was a bit too into his wheat germ shakes and his smelly high protein meals tended to leave a stench that lingered in the break room, but his intensity was a good match for a CSI.
"Yeah. I have him and Carol Choi. Why? I haven't heard anything come over from LVPD."
"I got a call about a scene down near Laughlin. I need Day shift to go out."
"Why?" All the 'whys' were testing Grissom's patience but he gamely allowed the director to finish his next question. "I figured with all overtime you guys were sucking up Sidle and Sanders would jump at the chance to work into the next shift."
"Conrad," Gil sighed, "you know we are short a CSI. And you know why. I have a scene that needs running. And it also, unfortunately, involves Nick Stokes. We've got one dead and two seriously wounded. I need the house where it went down run by someone not on Grave."
"What the hell? So wait, the dead girl in the alley. That was Stokes, too, wasn't it? You guys ran that one."
"Yes, Conrad, but that's because we had already taken the case before we ever determined Nick's involvement. Our initial investigation cleared him of any direct involvement in the girl's death. He was a victim, just like the girl was. This is…different. And by the way, why did you never say anything about the previous case? I would have thought you heard about Nick's involvement before I did," he said dryly.
"David did mention finding Nick's blood at the scene, but I figured, last time I accused Stokes of murder it bit me in the ass. Figured I'd let it bite you instead. So was this girl another dead prostitute?"
Grissom grimaced at the callous tone in which the question was asked. Ecklie had all the tact of an armored tank. "No, Conrad," he sighed. "It was Nick's girlfriend. And she was a barmaid."
"All right, Gil. So what's the story on this one?" Ecklie asked with a sigh, dramatic enough to trump Grissom's.
"All I know is there's a dead female gunshot victim, 20's or 30's, and the suspect in the murder of Mari Pacheco was also seriously injured, along with Pacheco's brother."
"And Stokes was there? Another dead girl…" He left his point hanging in the air. "I'll get Galloway and Choi out. Give me the address. Who's on scene- wait let me guess? Jim Brass."
Grissom tightened his grip on the phone; a rare flash of violent intentions hit him as he pictured Ecklie's neck as the receiver.
"Clark County Sheriffs are there. Brass was there with Warrick but they accompanied Nick and the victims to the hospital in Laughlin."
"I thought Stokes was already in the hospital? Up here in Vegas. What's he doing in Laughlin getting involved in a shootout?"
"When I find out, you'll be the first I call, Conrad."
"Why do I doubt that, Gil?"
But Grissom had already hung up.
… … … … … … … … … …
Warrick sat in a hard plastic chair in a hospital waiting room. Déjà vu all over again. He kept picturing the scene where they had found Nick and the boy. All that blood. Another dead unidentified Mexican girl. And Orozco. The other key actor in this tragedy.
He looked up at the entrance of a man in a white coat. This one was balding, but with a still youthful face. His age was probably less than Warrick's own but the doc's demeanor was that of a man years older; confident with a bit of a swagger. His mouth wore a scowl and he carried a threesome of paper charts in his hand.
Warrick stood to meet him. Brass was off making phone calls so he had to leave the confines of the ER waiting area to go outside and use his cell.
"Are you here with the three transports that came in the last hour?"
"Yeah. Warrick Brown. I'm a CSI attached to the LVPD. What's going on, Doctor…?"
"Farber. I'll start with the Mexican with the arm wound," he said brusquely; no attempt at small talk, just launching into his report. "He's being prepped for surgery when we get a free OR. GSW to the right upper bicep. It took out his brachial artery, but a bandage applied at the scene appears to have been adequate pressure to hold him together. The tightness was a bit excessive, but the tourniquet action probably aided in controlling blood flow," he said with a small frown. "I'm going to assume it wasn't an EMT that applied it?" he said, meeting Warrick's eyes, as if accusing an EMT of dressing the wound incorrectly.
"No. No, it was applied by the CSI in there with you…"
"Fine. The Mexican teenager -"
"Alberto Pacheco."
He continued as if not hearing the name, "Has a GSW to the lower left quadrant. The bullet glanced off a rib, shattering the bone, but stopping the bullet from doing morbid damage to the internal organs. We already have him on the way to the OR.
The white male-"
"That's the CSI, Nick Stokes. My partner-"
The doctor hesitated as if put off by the interruption of personal information about a patient in his care.
"The white male has no fresh trauma, but he's running an extremely high fever. Obviously systemic. I noted recent surgical work on the arm wound, along with infection at the site. I can see the holes left behind by an IV insertion on his hand. Hell, there's still tape adhesive around the insertion point. So my question for you, Mr. …?"
"Brown," he said with a sigh, reminding this young punk ass doctor again of his name. "Warrick Brown, CSI with …"
"Mr. Brown, why was this man not in a hospital? What kind of half-assed place would discharge a man so obviously and seriously ill?"
Warrick scratched at the back of his head and looked the doctor in the eye. "He discharged himself. It's complicated…"
"Undoubtedly."
The young doctor was reminding Warrick of Hodges more with every word that left his thin-lipped mouth.
"How he managed to leave, nonetheless get involved in a gun battle and remain on his feet is beyond me … he's running a fever of 105.7. I'll need the name of the hospital and his assigned physicians so they can fax me over his records."
Warrick hastily gave him the info on Nick's previous hospitalization, but didn't know the name of his doctor once he'd been sent up so he gave him Dr. Espinoza's number and advised he call her. "She's been keeping up on his progress since he left her ER."
"Progress, huh?" the doctor said with a raised eyebrow. "Can't see how any competent doctor would call this progress."
The morning had started with an urgent phone call and was ending with his arrival at a bloodbath and his best friend at death's door. The intern's snaky remarks had been eating at him and his patience was worn down to the nub.
He leaned forward, glad for his extra height, and put his face closer to the doctor's, as if Farber was a suspect he was trying to intimidate. "How's about you cut out the shitty remarks and tell me what's going on with my partner?" Warrick said menacingly. The boy's blood covering the front of his shirt added to his fearsome appearance.
The intern bent backwards as his personal space was invaded. Stammered a bit but quickly regained his former haughtiness as he looked down at his charts. He made a show of rifling through the paperwork until he found the one he was looking for.
"The white male-"
"Nick. Stokes."
"-Mr. Stokes is being given a piggyback IV. Concurrent doses of vancomycin, Cipro, and Linezolid until I know what he was receiving during his previous stay. These are the three strongest antibiotics we have. We'll have him on cooling blankets and anti-pyretics, and try to get the fever under control. Do you know if your friend has any conditions that would have compromised his immune system this badly? Any immuno-suppressant medications?"
"Nick had some bad head trauma. He had a…" He scrambled for the terms he'd heard the doc use in the ER at the George Q "…a subdural hematoma. He suffered memory loss. I know the docs had him juiced up on a lot of steroids for that," he said confidently, remembering the call Grissom had placed to him before his last visit.
The doctor nodded his head and pulled out a pen from the pocket of his white coat. Jotted a few illegible notes on the chart then clicked the pen back shut with a flourish.
"Thank you."
"Is that it?"
"That's it, Mr. Brown. We're sending him up to the ICU. Infection control wing. Leave your contact information at the front desk. Oh, and Mr. Brown?"
"Yeah?"
"If Mr. Stokes has any family, you may want to give them a call."